michael 
I’m excited to co-lead the Telematic Bridges course for the second year this coming August. We’ll be working in our studios at UCI with high school students from Santa Ana High School, connecting them telematically with similar age students in Manizales, Colombia. It’s inspiring for me to see what they will do in the telematic space and to expose them to … Read more
It was wonderful to collaborate with so many great artists and technicians on our 3-way telematic concert Interconnections for Peace on the evening of June 8 – or the afternoon of June 9 for those in Seoul! Mark Dresser, Nicole Mitchell, Stephanie Richards and myself were in San Diego; Yoon Sun Choi, Jane Ira Bloom, Matthias Ziegler, David Taylor, Satoshi … Read more
I was sorry to not be able to travel to Manizales, Colombia this year after having done so the past 3 years in a row to perform on the Festival de la Imagen, but fortunately I was able to “beam in” to perform on a concert telematically with my wonderful collaborators there. Juan David Rubio (drums) and I were performing … Read more
Somewhere In The Upstream, my latest trio CD on Clean Feed Records with Chris Tordini and Dan Weiss, and dedicated to Yusef Lateef, received a nice review in the May 2018 issue of Downbeat magazine. “Three master improvisers—Dessen on trombone and computer, bassist Christopher Tordini and drummer Dan Weiss—collaborate with help from a computer that acts both as an electronic roadmap … Read more
I just returned from a conferenced on network music at Stony Brook organized by Sarah Weaver called Network Music: Artistic and Technological Strategies for Public and Private Networks, where I presented a new paper on telematics (working towards an essay to publish eventually…) and performed/presented as part of a group panel organized with Sarah, Mark Dresser, Matthias Ziegler, Benjamin Burger … Read more
It’s always a pleasure to be part of the Skeleton Key Orchestra, a beautifully utopian project led for what seems like forever by my friend Nathan Hubbard, pictured here when we were a few years younger. The concert this week in San Diego featured a huge ensemble and Nate’s music, as always, was multilayered, kaleidoscopic and totally unpredictable.
I’m happy to announce that Clean Feed Records just released my newest trio CD, titled Somewhere In The Upstream. The music is dedicated to my former teacher, Yusef Lateef (1920-2013). This concert-length composition takes the form of a “scorestream,” in which score notations are displayed on screens for the improvisers to interpret, shifting with each performance. I wrote it for … Read more
I recently enjoyed two concerts in SoCal with a new quintet featuring my trio bandmates Chris Tordini and Dan Weiss as well as special guests Nicole Mitchell and Joshua White. We played on Oct. 26 at the Irvine Barclay Theatre on a split bill with Nicole Mitchell’s “When Life’s Door Opens,” and then on Oct. 27 in San Diego, on … Read more
Our benefit concert for Puerto Rico hurricane relief was a beautiful concert and also raised $2,880! It featured many fantastic musicians including some of my faculty colleagues at UC Irvine as well as guest artists. I played on a set with Nicole Mitchell, Mark Dresser and Joshua White, and among other things we played a new piece I wrote for … Read more
Just enjoyed 3 concerts back east playing Mark’s fantastic 7tet music with Marty Ehrlich, Nicole Mitchell, Joshua White, David Morales Boroff, and Jim Black. It was great to see so many friends at the Stone in NYC, Real Art Ways in Hartford, and the Magic Triangle Series at UMass, Amherst (pictured here, photo by Maurice D Robertson). We’re also playing … Read more
In August, I was privileged to co-teach a one-week telematic music class with high-school age musicians in California and Colombia. Here at UCI, I was with a group of students from Santa Ana High School, and in Manizales, Colombia, my colleagues at the University of Caldas led a group from the Centro Batuta. We introduced the students to music technology basics … Read more
On 8/3/17, I had a fantastic time as always playing with these incredible musicians in the Mark Dresser Quintet at the Hammer Museum in LA – Mark, Nicole Mitchell, Joshua White, and Michael Sarin! Thanks to all the friends who came out and the wonderful Lisa Mezzacappa for curating this great series of free concerts every August.